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Originally posted by iconoclaust
i just find it hard to beleive in christianity when they talk about unity and peace, but wage wars in the name of god all the time.
i guess thats just humans, god could be cool.
plus they slaughtered and converted the pegans... and that was rude.....
Originally posted by iconoclaust
ok. so i was thinking about jesus. then i realized the most logical explination. jesus was the first great escape artist and magician. he turned a couple peices of bread and some fish into a meal that could feed hundreds (trap door) then he healed the sick (they were in on it) his last and greatest magic trick took place in his "last days" first he got exicuted on a cross. he was in plain sight, he even got stabbed. then he "died" (illusion). proceeding his death he was wrapped up in a white sheet (commonly used by magicians) and locked away in a tomb for 3 days. there was "no way of escape". on the third day people attacked the gaurds of his tomb to get in (diversion for jesus to make his escape) when they opened it up! OH MY GOSH! WHERES JESUS! he appeared in the sky, all illuminated n such. sounds like a magician to me!!!
anyone else realize this before?
Originally posted by iconoclaust
ok. so i was thinking about jesus. then i realized the most logical explination. jesus was the first great escape artist and magician. he turned a couple peices of bread and some fish into a meal that could feed hundreds (trap door) then he healed the sick (they were in on it) his last and greatest magic trick took place in his "last days" first he got exicuted on a cross. he was in plain sight, he even got stabbed. then he "died" (illusion). proceeding his death he was wrapped up in a white sheet (commonly used by magicians) and locked away in a tomb for 3 days. there was "no way of escape". on the third day people attacked the gaurds of his tomb to get in (diversion for jesus to make his escape) when they opened it up! OH MY GOSH! WHERES JESUS! he appeared in the sky, all illuminated n such. sounds like a magician to me!!!
anyone else realize this before?
When this "critical" program was carried through, almost everything in the gospels turned out to belong to "the Christ of faith"; next to nothing was left of "the Jesus of history." This result was convenient for preachers (it minimized the historical obstacles to homiletic developments), but is indefensible as the outcome of a historical study of four ancient documents. Moreover, the fundamental antithesis, that between "the Christ of faith" as a mythological figure and "the Jesus of history" as a preacher free of mythological presuppositions, is anachronistic. Where in ancient Palestine would one find a man whose understanding of the world and of himself was not mythological?
The picture of the world common to Jesus and his Jewish Palestinian contemporaries is known to us from many surviving Jewish and Christian documents. It was wholly mythological. Above the earth were heavens inhabited by demons, angels, and gods of various sorts (the "many gods" whose existence Paul conceded in I Cor. 8.5, and among whom he counted "the god of this age," II Cor. 4.4). In the highest heaven was enthroned the supreme god, Yahweh, "God" par excellence, who long ago created the whole structure and was about to remodel, or destroy and replace it. Beneath the earth was an underworld, to which most of the dead descended. There, too, were demons. Through underworld, earth, and heavens was a constant coming and going of supernatural beings who interfered in many ways with human affairs. Sickness, especially insanity, plagues, famines, earthquakes, wars, and disasters of all sorts were commonly thought to be the work of demons. With these demons, as with evil men, particularly foreign oppressors, the peasants of Palestine lived in perpetual hostility and sporadic conflict, but the relations were complex. As the Roman government had its Jewish agents, some of whim, notably the Herods, were local rulers, so the demons had their human agents who could do miracles and deceive many. The lower gods were the rulers of this age, and men who knew how to call on them could get their help for all sorts of purposes. So could women, whose favors they had rewarded by teaching them magic and other arts of civilized life. On the other hand, Yahweh, like the demons, was often the cause of disasters, sickness, etc., sent as punishments. He sometimes used angels, sometimes demons, as agents of his anger, and his human agents, his prophets, could also harm as well as help. Most Jews believed that in the end he would destroy or remodel the present world, and create a new order in which the Jews, or at least those who had followed his law, would have a better life. However, as to the course of events and the actors in the coming catastrophe, there was wide disagreement; any number of contradictory programs circulated, with various roles for one or more "messiahs"- special representatives of Yahweh- anti-messiahs, and assorted mythological monsters.
This was the picture of the world common in first century Palestine. Even Herod Antipas, the Romans' puppet prince in Galilee, is said to have thought Jesus was John the Baptist raised from the dead. Even Josephus, a Jew of priestly aristocracy who as a young man was sent on a mission to Rome, held beliefs of this sort: he was proud of the Jews' control of demons; he claimed to have prophetic powers himself and to have prophesied that the Roman general, Vespasian, would become emperor and rule all mankind; and he saw Vespasian as a messiah foretold by at least some biblical prophecies. His own prophecy was famous; the Roman historian Suetonius and Dio Cassius reported it. Suetonius and Tacitus say that such messianic prophecies were common throughout the Near East. We should presume that almost all Palestinian Jews of Jesus' time thought themselves involved in the mythological cosmic drama. That Jesus did so is not merely a matter of presumption; it is supported by the unanimous evidence of the gospels.